


Two Legacies

by Poetry



Series: Legacy [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alien Planet, Angst, Dark, Future Fic, Gen, Moral Ambiguity, Mystery, Plotty, Post-Canon, Timey-Wimey, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-16
Updated: 2010-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-06 08:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack must find the Chameleon Arch before it falls into the wrong hands. Along the way, he encounters fragments from his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Non-Linear Viewpoint

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of a series, and I would recommend reading it in order, but for those who don't have the time, here's what you need to know going in: Jack is 6000 years old and has watched everyone he loves die, including the Doctor. He now travels in his own TARDIS, filling the Doctor's role in his place. Captain John Hart stole the Chameleon Arch from the Doctor's dead TARDIS, and Jack is trying to recover it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Exultation is the going  
> Of an inland soul to sea,  
> Past the houses — past the headlands —  
> Into deep Eternity —
> 
> Bred as we, among the mountains,  
> Can the sailor understand  
> The divine intoxication  
> Of the first league out from land?"  
> -Emily Dickinson

Gravity tugged only halfheartedly at the heels of Jack Harkness, and proved unable to keep him down. He leapt out of the TARDIS onto the blue fens of the dwarf planet Erash in the Kasterborous system and cavorted like Aldrin and Armstrong on Luna so many centuries ago. His feet bounced with every step, like the feet of a man he knew and loved who greeted every world with unfettered enthusiasm, who once leapt across a thousand different low-gravity worlds with Jack gamboling at his side.

For one moment, the grim dust of millennia was swept from his mind by the thrill of lands unknown. If he had had some curious, awestruck friend at his side, a quick-minded medical student or a naïve shop girl, Jack would have told her why the fens were so wild and empty, or pointed out the cloud of tiny golden flies congregating over a rotten branch. He might have picked her up and swung her in a circle, reveling in the weak gravity. Instead, he skipped alone through the low brush, and for a moment he forgot.

A distant copse of trees waved willowy fronds in the light wind. "On a larger world, these trees would be impossibly tall," said an enthusiastic, boyish voice in Jack's mind. "The force of gravity would overcome the forces of transpiration and capillary action that transport water and nutrients from the roots all the way to the tippy-top of the crown. But on a little plutoid like this, you get trees taller than a Nakazian skyscraper! Aren't they marvelous?" With that voice came the weight of responsibility.

Jack passed a sign that read, "30 klicks to Laketown, Home of the Cog and Wheel Technical Institute." By now he could catch glimpses of low, square buildings between the trees. He reached the stand of trees in what felt like no time at all, his strides lengthened by the weak gravity. He felt buoyant yet powerful, like his strength exceeded what his skin could contain. His muscles shrugged off the weight of this little world.

The trees formed a ring around the town, which in turn formed a ring around a lake. The Cog and Wheel Technical Institute rose square and somber from an isle in the middle of the lake. The low drone of a thousand supercomputers, assembly robots, and particle accelerators emanated from the building and blanketed the town.

He took the narrow footpath into town. The streets, which formed concentric circles and spokes around the lake, were quiet. The people were mantis-like: tall, narrow, and pale pink. Their large glittering eyes watched him with wariness, but no shock. Jack guessed that they were accustomed to alien visitors to the Cog and Wheel. He smiled and waved cheekily at passersby, and they made embarrassed chittering noises in their slender throats and looked away. "There's a time and a place," said the voice of responsibility, fond yet stern, and Jack squared back his shoulders, easy flirtation replaced by polite curiosity.

On a nearby street corner stood someone with an official-looking black cap. Jack drew on millennia of finely-attuned charm and approached this person with a sheepish grin. "Excuse me, your honor. I'm new to your world and I don't really know anyone in town. Would you mind showing me around?" The voice warned, "Stop it!" Chastened, he eased his hips out of their suggestive tilt.

The officer's opalescent eyes transfixed him for a moment. Then the insectile stranger made a clicking noise that sounded like surprise. "Oh, hello! Forgive me for not recognizing you. You just seem so different. Officer Korath at your service, Captain Harkness."

Inwardly, Jack groaned. Unlike the Doctor, he couldn't see time, couldn't predict or avoid timeline entanglements. The real Doctor would never have found himself in this situation. "I think you must be getting me mixed up with someone else, officer," he said, trying to maintain his good humor.

Officer Korath made a disapproving _chrr_ sound. "Your human jokes do not amuse me, Captain Harkness. You were here not a sunrise ago on an inquiry about Prisoner 19. You are very odd, Captain Harkness, if you will forgive me saying so, even for an alien. You seem different, somehow, from the time I saw you last. You were wearing a very different garment, and you were..." Korath blinked her great glittering eyes slowly. "I am not familiar with human body language; I cannot describe it."

Jack gave up trying to convince Korath of the truth, and just played along with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, officer. You'll forgive me for my cultural quirks, I hope. I've just been so busy that I forgot all about my visit. Care to refresh my memory?"

"We discussed the criminal record of Prisoner 19, Captain," said the officer patiently, as if speaking to a wayward teenager. "He is a male of your species, detained for breaking into the Institute archives. You said that since he was human, he was under your jurisdiction, not ours. I am pleased to report that Constable Thain has approved your request to personally discipline the prisoner as a subject of your agency's jurisdiction."

Jack felt a headache build, that special sort of headache he had come to associate over the years with complex temporal anomalies. Curiosity won out over exasperation. "Officer," he said with a crisp bow and a fake smile. "If you would be so kind as to show me the prisoner?"


	2. That Impossible Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You left me, sweet, two legacies, —  
> A legacy of love  
> A Heavenly Father would content,  
> Had He the offer of;
> 
> You left me boundaries of pain  
> Capacious as the sea  
> Between eternity and time,  
> Your consciousness and me."  
> \- Emily Dickinson

The prison looked more like a bank than anything: a cold, metallic place of transactions and exchanges. Each cell was little more than a giant safe, each with a keypad and a small screen on the door next to the lock. The cell at the end of the row, however, had three extra locks with different biometric sensors. Above the screen was emblazoned the number 19.

"Why all the extra security?" Jack's hand went automatically to his hip, even though there was no gun holstered there.

From what he could make of Korath's slack posture and downcast antennae, the officer seemed acutely embarrassed. "Prisoner 19 has attempted escape 32 times since his arrest and imprisonment three sunsets ago. Fifteen of these attempts were nearly successful." Avoiding eye contact, she started undoing the extra locks. "You may communicate with the prisoner via the keypad until I finish."

Jack couldn't help but feel admiration for the prisoner, whoever he was. He typed into the keypad, "Hello. I'm called the Doctor. I'm here to get you out."

The message that appeared on the screen in reply was: "Oh no, not again." Jack's headache throbbed nastily under his temples. He rested his forehead against the cool metal of the cell door, scowling. Korath reached for the keypad with a delicate pincer and entered a lengthy passcode. Jack took several steps backward and quietly braced himself. With a quiet _snick_, the cell door opened.

The sound of the prisoner's voice came before the sight of the man himself. "All right, which one is it this time? I hope you're the fifth me. I rather liked that me. Oh, I do hope you're not a future me. The timeline entanglement would be hopeless - or maybe you're not me at all, like that poor bloke Jackson - _mmf_!"

The Doctor found his prattle suddenly cut off by a mouth crashing desperately against his own, devouring him as if the taste of his lips and tongue were the only hope of a dying man. He felt Jack cling to his shoulders for support as the immortal's broad, solid body went slack against his long, spindly one. "It's never just 'hello' with you, is it?" teased the Doctor fondly as soon as Jack gave his lips enough room to form words.

Jack buried his face in the Doctor's shoulder, trembling like some great broken machine slowly grinding to a halt. All the cogs and wheels of his life had suddenly, unaccountably stopped. "I've missed you too, Jack," said the Doctor, the corners of his mouth upturned, but his eyes dark and sad. He didn't move, didn't speak another word, just let himself be Jack's anchor once more.

"Is this how you treat your prisoners, Captain Harkness?" said Officer Korath, curving her mouthparts disdainfully. "Unless I am much mistaken, the two of you have just completed a human courtship ritual."

Jack glared at her over the Doctor's shoulder, while the Time Lord subjected the officer to the full force of his glower. The sweep of his hair shadowed his narrowed eyes. "The Captain and I need a moment in private, if you don't mind."

The facets of Korath's eyes glittered dangerously. "_My_ daughter, Captain. She went missing four sunsets ago. Cog and Wheel students have been disappearing, and this criminal may well be responsible."

The Doctor never broke eye contact, enunciating each syllable like a proclamation. "The Captain and I will go to the Institute. We will find your daughter and every other missing student. Then we will find whoever is responsible and bring them to justice. I swear." His tone brooked no argument.

The officer looked at Jack and somehow beyond him, as if peering directly into some layer of himself he had hitherto kept hidden. She spoke directly to him, as if the Doctor hadn't spoken at all. "Our detectives on this case have found no leads," said Korath frostily. "I hope you are favored with better fortune, Captain." Korath's antennae curled in on themselves. "Keep your eye on the prisoner." Her many-jointed legs clicked mechanically on the floor as she left the cell block.

Once the Doctor was certain that Korath had gone, he gently lifted Jack's head off his shoulder, held him at arm's length, but maintained the physical contact, his fingers curled around Jack's biceps. "Before we talk," he said cautiously, "I think we need a timeline check. How old are you?"

"A little hard to keep track, with all the different calendars. Let's just say that if a 51st century human lifespan is 120 Earth years on average, then I'm 54 times older than I have any right to be. And that's not including the couple millennia I spent buried under Cardiff," he said grimly. "Have I told you about that yet?"

"Oh, _Jack_," the Doctor breathed, drawing him close again. For a terrible moment, the closeness of the Doctor's body, cool as the dirt of graves, reminded him of those centuries of burial. _He's the Doctor, not my grave,_ he thought, and exhaled a shuddering breath.

He felt the Doctor's Adam's apple bob against his cheek as he spoke. "Last time I saw you, we'd just saved the universe. We flew the TARDIS the way she was meant to be flown. We brought everyone home."

Jack drew back a little so he could look the Doctor in the eye. He saw quiescence, an implicit expectation that Jack would respond with nothing more than a witty comment or a fake smile. He thought of all the feelings he had never been able to express when he was young and traveling with the Doctor. "The TARDIS was home," he whispered fiercely. "For everyone who travels with her."

"What happened to you, Captain?" The game had changed; the rules were broken. New truths could, perhaps, be spoken. The Doctor held the curve of Jack's jaw gently in his hands. "What did you lose?" He studied his face, trying to read the tragedies in every line and crease. Jack drew in a breath, the story about to tumble from his lips, until he remembered the fragility of time, and held back.

"What brings you to Erash?" countered Jack, desperate to change the subject. The Doctor's eyebrows drew together, then he gave a tiny nod, resigning to the old game of silence and evasion.

"Actually, I'm not sure. That's the part that worries me," muttered the Doctor, his hands falling to his sides. "I was in the TARDIS, doing a check on the equipment, just routine. Then my memory just _stops_. Next thing I know I'm alone in a lab at the Cog and Wheel Institute on Erash. I have no idea where the TARDIS is, and all my pockets are empty. Do you have any idea how much I keep in my pockets? They're dimensionally transcendental!" By this point the Doctor was gesturing wildly and tugging at his hair. "I don't even have the TARDIS key. She could be anywhere!"

Jack's eyes widened. He clutched the Doctor's sleeves, forcing his flailing arms to stillness. "Doctor, did your routine check include the Chameleon Arch, by any chance?"

"Of course. Why?" His head then jerked to the left as the door to the cell block opened with a clang.

Officer Korath scuttled in, pincers bared. The sound of more human footsteps followed, clunking instead of clicking behind Korath. "Captain, what is the meaning of this?" she shrieked, and took a step aside to reveal the person behind her.

Jack was suddenly face to face with himself.


	3. The Perfect Self-Cleaning Con

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucilius:  
> And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I;  
> Brutus, my country's friend; know me for Brutus! [...]  
> When you do find him, or alive or dead,  
> He will be found like Brutus, like himself.
> 
> Antony:  
> This is not Brutus, friend; but, I assure you,  
> A prize no less in worth: keep this man safe;  
> Give him all kindness: I had rather have  
> Such men my friends than enemies.
> 
> \- _Julius Caesar_, William Shakespeare

"That isn't you, Jack," murmured the Doctor. "The kind of temporal paradox caused by meeting yourself - I'd feel it."

"Definitely not me. Hardly need Time Lord senses to figure that one out. Just look at him," said Jack, gesturing.

Jack's double cut a sad figure. Physically, he was identical to Jack, though his face looked younger. The resemblance ended there. He wore nothing but a white sheet draped around him like a toga, a clothing choice which Jack would never make outside of ancient Rome. His hair clearly hadn't been combed or gelled in several days. More tellingly, his body language was nothing like Jack's at any stage in his long life. He was slouched, staring at the floor, his gaze twitching nervously toward Jack at sudden intervals. He fidgeted constantly, rearranging the folds of his toga and shifting his weight from foot to foot, as if his skin was on too tight.

"One of you is an impostor," snarled Korath through her gnashing mouthparts, "and none of you are leaving this prison until I find out which."

"I am," said Jack's double.

Human, Time Lord, and Erashi all stared at him.

"I'm not Captain Jack Harkness," he insisted, somewhat peevishly. "I want to believe I am - or at least, someone wants me to believe I am - but I'm just...not." He bit his lip and tugged at his toga, only making occasional eye contact. Jack noticed that looking at him made the double particularly uncomfortable (not that he didn't feel the same way.) "I remember being him, all my life. I know it happened to me, but I _feel_ that it didn't." He scratched his head, as if trying to remove the foreign thoughts within. "I even have his personality, in my head. At first I acted like him, until I realized that it wasn't me doing these things. I'm not a former con man. I'm not a soldier. I'm not an ex-Time Agent. I'm not from the 51st century. I'm not even a human male at all. Even my body just feels...wrong."

Korath spoke first, her antennae fully erect and quivering with outrage. "Your outlandish excuses are irrelevant. You will not leave our custody until you surrender whatever technology you used to impersonate this human." Jack stared at Korath. Was that look in her eyes betrayal? She was so hard to read that he couldn't be sure.

"Let me handle it," said Jack. "He's my problem." He grabbed his double by the wrist. The impostor squirmed uncomfortably, but did not resist. If there had been any possibility that this man was a past or future version of him, the fact that the universe did not tear around their joined hands discounted it.

"You must forgive me, Captain," said Korath, her drooping antennae the picture of regret (though she continued to give the impostor venomous glares.) "I should have known that this was an elaborate deception. It is my duty as an officer to see through the disguises of liars and impostors. I was...blinded."

"It isn't your fault, officer," said the Doctor kindly. "This hoax involves technology well beyond anything you've ever seen. There's no way you could have been prepared for it. Luckily, I'm an expert in these matters." He bounced on his heels, smirking. "I'm very clever, as you may have noticed from my ingenious escapes."

Korath's mouthparts curved peevishly. "Well, we shall see if you are clever enough. I must file a report for the constable. May justice be served," she declared, saluting Jack with a downward flick of her antennae.

Jack saluted back in the human fashion. "May justice be served," he repeated. Click, click, click. Korath was gone. As soon as the door glided shut behind her, Jack pointed his wrist-comp at his double and began scanning.

"All right. I think it's time we had a talk," said the Doctor. He gave the double a polite smile which didn't reach his eyes. "Do you remember anything about your previous life? Any strange dreams?"

The double positively writhed with discomfort under the two time travelers' scrutiny. Every time Jack brought his wrist-comp within a hand's-breadth of his body, he flinched away. "No...well, yes. I mean, they're just dreams, but in the dreams, everything feels...different, I guess. I see everything in zillions of pieces, and I have all these strange senses that I can't really sort out."

"His body is identical to mine during the time I first traveled with you," said Jack, finishing his examination. "Except for the brain. The neural pathways in the hippocampus are a mess. My wrist-comp can't make heads or tails of it."

"All right, then, er - well, we can't call you Jack, can we?" said the Doctor, rubbing the back of his neck. "What did you call yourself just before you were Jack?"

"Lucilius," they said at the same time, Jack grimacing and his double positively cringing at the memory. "When I did my Pompeii con, I called myself 'Lucilius' when I interacted with the locals," Jack explained.

"'Interacting with the locals'? Is that what you call it?" the double squeaked.

The Doctor spoke too loudly, pre-empting any attempt from Jack to elaborate on his escapades in Pompeii. "Right. Lucilius it is, then! Tell me," he said, tilting his head forward so the sweep of his hair shadowed his eyes to dark pits. "What happened between you and Officer Korath yesterday?"

"Ahh, what do you mean?" said Lucilius, shuffling his feet. He seemed to have noticed something particularly interesting on the floor that required his undivided attention, Jack noted wryly.

"Don't play coy with me," warned the Doctor. His slightly gritted teeth gave his voice a dark edge that gave Jack that dark, faraway look that could only mean he was imagining kissing the Doctor again, and Lucilius a wide-eyed, jumpy look that could only mean he was imagining fleeing the prison. "When she found out that you were an impostor," the Doctor continued, "Korath took it not just as a breach of the law, but as a _personal_ offense. Now what happened yesterday?"

"She t-t-told me about the disappearances," said Lucilius desperately. He looked like he was about to crawl up the walls, anything to evade the Doctor's scrutiny. "About her daughter. I felt bad for her, just terrible. I swear! I - I just tried to, I dunno, comfort her or something. I listened to her story, and I promised to help. That's why I wanted to get you out of here, Doctor! I heard rumors about a man in the Institute, a strange man with a sonic screwdriver, who got arrested for trespassing, and I knew it had to be you. I knew you could help crack the case. You look, well, a little different than how I remember, b-b-but..."

"Korath trusted you," said the Doctor, his voice gray and brittle as iron. "Then you turned out not to be the man you said you were."

A beat of unbearable silence passed, until it was broken by the _snick_ of the cell block door opening. Korath craned her head in. "Detective Melisair has found new evidence on the case. If you still wish to assist me, Captain, I can show you." Jack nodded, and she made a relieved chirping noise deep in her throat. "I recommend you leave the others behind. The Detective's findings are...disturbing."


	4. Freak of Technology

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave  
> Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;  
> Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.  
> I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned."  
> \- "Dirge Without Music" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

"The Doctor is coming with us," said Jack. He strode toward the door, not even waiting for Korath's reply.

"Lucilius here," the Doctor said, steering the double by the shoulder toward the door, "is coming too. The evidence might spark his memory, cause the underlying neural pathways in his brain to reassert themselves." Lucilius dragged his heels all the way to the door. The Doctor continued to chivvy him on. "Come on, step lively."

Korath clicked her pincers disapprovingly. "In that case, Captain, these civilians are your responsibility." Her big, bright eyes went dark. She continued, quietly, "They may not be prepared for what they are about to witness."

Lucilius repressed a shudder of fear. The Doctor sniffed and muttered something about being "not prepared for obnoxious, self-important insects." Korath ignored him and set off down a narrow chrome corridor, and they followed in single file, Jack first, Lucilius last.

The morgue was cold and white. The smell of disinfectant and of sterilized air blowing in from the ventilation shafts almost masked the reek of death. Lucilius began to shiver a little; the others showed no discomfort with the temperature change. The Doctor was frowning, his eyes shadowed (bad memories from a couple bodies ago, Jack figured.) All four of them turned their attention to the exam tables, on which the bodies lay, covered by thin black cloth. The contorted contours of the corpses were visible through the cloth, thrown into relief by the harsh white glow of the luminescent ceiling.

"These bodies were found at the bottom of the lake, weighted down with stones," said Korath, her eyes on the bodies before her. "Preliminary forensic tests found that they died before they were deposited in the lake. It appears that the murderer wanted to conceal the evidence." She made a strange rasping sound in her throat whose meaning Jack could not divine. "Captain. Doctor," she said, without turning around. "We are officers of the law, and we witness many horrendous crimes. None of us have ever seen anything of the like."

She clasped her pincers together, as if in prayer, then pulled the cloth off one of the corpses.

Jack Harkness was a connoisseur of bodies. He appreciated bodies, both intellectually and carnally, whether they were humanoid or insectile, tentacled or limbless, aquatic or avian. For this first time in his life, he saw a body that had none of the integral beauty he could find in all life-forms. For the first time in six thousand years of existence, he understood what a monster was supposed to look like.

Two species that had evolved on opposite ends of the galaxy had collided, forced to melt into each other, limbs extruded from flesh that was never built to this barbarous design. Bones protruded from skin and flattened into chitinous armor as endoskeleton was contrived into exoskeleton. Antennae commingled with black hair. The bodily fluids that seeped from its ruptured flesh were both red human blood and brown Erashi hemolymph. Mandibles emerged from the lips of a toothless mouth, and the half-formed facets of a compound eye glittered behind a deep brown iris. Despite the malformation, however, despite the monstrosity...

"I know that face," said Jack, his voice low and trembling. He forced himself to confront the horror of it, to give the dead the dignity of a witness. _If she were here, and it were my face instead, she wouldn't look away. She wouldn't want the truth to be hidden, no matter how ugly._ He ignored the noise of Lucilius retching into a wastebasket in the corner, and tore the covers off the rest of the cadavers.

The Doctor was positively quaking with rage. "Different people, all with the same human imprint," he said through gritted teeth. "All with the face of Martha Jones."

He turned to Korath, and despite her advantage in height, he seemed to tower over her all the same. "Officer, this will never happen again. Not to your daughter, not to anyone. I've traveled the universe for 900-odd years, and I can tell you, there are fates worse than death. Whoever is doing this is stealing bodies, memories, personalities, everything that makes life more than just living." He gestured at the row of mutant corpses. "These people can never have their true selves restored to them, but if your daughter still lives, I will give it all back, Officer Korath. Every memory, every quirk, every habit that makes her who she is - she'll have them back. That's a promise."

"How, Doctor? How can you save her from becoming one of them?" shrilled Korath. The vestigial wings on her back thrummed together, producing a high-pitched whine that set Jack and his double's teeth on edge. "Do you think I never tried to save my Raihel? That I never searched every turret of every tower, every cellar, every morgue? You haven't done a bloody thing! All you've done is broken into the Cog and Wheel classified archives! You are nothing but a common criminal. You never knew Raihel, never loved her. Why should I listen to you?"

"I broke into the archives for a _reason_. I wanted to find out why students were disappearing, and I did. If you had taken a moment, just a moment, to ask why I was in the archives - if you had _listened_ to me - I would have told you." His breath steamed white in the cold air of the morgue, surrounding him like smoke from some inner fire. "I don't know your daughter, Officer, but I do know who is responsible for her disappearance. And if you have any inclination whatsoever to believe anything that I say, then believe this: Justice _will_ be served."


	5. First Interlude

"Where did you find this device, Agent?" said the anemic, spindly Erashi at his worktable. The worktable looked like an insect itself, bristling with sensitive instruments that looked like antennae, and clasping tools like Erashi pincers.

The agent, a pale, statuesque man with his hair and irises dyed lavender, folded his arms. "I came to you not just because of your reputation as a great engineer, Scholar. You're also well known for your _discretion_. You had better hope for your own sake that you live up to that reputation." His presence was intimidatingly close; the office was spacious, and the agent could have given the other much more personal space, had he so chosen.

"Very well, then, very well..." The scholar peered at the partially disassembled device through his zoom-lenses. "The device may well be useful to you, Agent. From what I have been able to determine, it can rewrite every cell in the body to a DNA template. Furthermore, it can overwrite the neurons with different memories and personalities."

The agent couldn't quite conceal the greed in his expression. "Is it reversible?"

"Completely. The device produces a record of the original DNA and neural templates which are be restored when the record is accessed." The scholar took up an infinitesimal strand of wiring and held it up to an infrared lamp. "The device can function in two different ways. The DNA and neural templates can be fabricated with biomodeling software, or taken from a preexisting organism. The memory chip of this device contains many templates, both fabricated and procured from live samples." Using a slender tool clasped in his pincer, the scholar wound the tiny wire into a coil. "The fabricated DNA templates work just as well as natural ones. The fabricated neural templates, however, have a weaker hold on the psyche, since it is so difficult to manufacture the self."

"I think we could come to some sort of arrangement with this device, Scholar Garet," said the agent with a smile that showed all his glistening teeth. He traced a seam of the Erashi's exoskeleton along his back.

The scholar tried to suppress a shiver. Several instruments beeped in response to the vibrations his shiver sent through the worktable. "What sort of arrangement would that be?"

"The device fascinates you, Scholar. It gives you..." The predatory man brushed the edge of a gauzy wing, causing the scholar's mandibles to rattle in reflex. "...the chills." He leaned forward until they were almost cheek to cheek (if Erashi could be said to have cheeks.) "Make someone up. Make a new me, and I'll let you keep the device."

"I will need time," said Garet levelly. "This is the greatest technological challenge I have ever faced."

The agent ran his fingers up Garet's back toward his neck and accidentally-on-purpose brushed a chink in his exoskeleton that was the weakest point in the natural armor. "You'll get it done." Garet was tensely still, as if he were balancing glass on his head. "Have a good evening, Scholar," said the agent with an exaggerated bow. He peeled away from the scholar and made for the exit. On the way out the door, he flipped on the switch for the heat-lamp that kept Garet's cold-blooded metabolism from going into dormancy in the chill of the night.

The lights in the corridor were designed to change with the time of day to reflect natural illumination. By this hour, they had cooled to the color of Erash's silvery moon. The secretary outside Garet's office was packing up her things. The security badge at the base of her neck read "Assistant Serelaith." She saw him come up behind her with the panoramic vision of her large compound eyes. "Good evening, sir. My shift is about to end, but if you require any assistance..."

"Assistance? From you?" His appraising stare made Serelaith feel as if she had no exoskeleton, only exposed flesh like this wolfish human. "Oh, please do." He bared his teeth in a smile, and leaned across her desk so she could feel the heat of his breath. "Tell me," he said, "does the esteemed Scholar get any visitors? Students, apprentices, family, children?"

Serelaith's antennae quivered unconsciously. She found herself nearer to him, her slowing metabolism drawn to his body heat as the building cooled in the freezing Erashi night. "You are unfamiliar with our society, sir. Paternity does not exist here as it does in species where the sexes have parity, like yours does. Males constitute 5% of our population, so they serve no role in reproduction and child-rearing beyond the mating act. The Scholar has no family, no apprentice to carry on his legacy." Something about the warmth that rolled off the human in tangible waves made her continue beyond the bounds of propriety. "It kills him, sir. The way he looks when he sees the other Scholars with their children - he wishes he had an heir to carry on his work. But it isn't a man's place on Erash. It's a fool's dream he has."

"You've been of great assistance," drawled the Time Agent. "Safe passage home, Serelaith. Don't get too _cold_." His receding figure was a burst of color against the chrome walls of the corridor.

As he left, Serelaith was speechless with outrage - he'd called her by her name, not her title! - until she remembered how little he knew of Erashi culture. It was clear he knew nothing at all.


	6. The Only Man Clever Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Behind Me — dips Eternity —  
> Before Me — Immortality —  
> Myself — the Term between —"  
> \- Emily Dickinson

The Doctor's mouth ran like a motor all the way across the lake. The police skimmer hummed quietly across the water, offering no noise to drown out his chatter. He stood at the stern of the sleek white craft, facing aft. Jack watched the dark waves parting in the skimmer's wake and listened. Lucilius did his best to ignore both of them, his eyes closed and his fingers laced tightly in his lap.

"The Chameleon Arch is advanced technology, well beyond anything the Institute has ever seen." This haughty remark produced a glare from Korath, who was piloting the skimmer at the helm. The Doctor ignored her and ploughed on. "It would take a technical genius to produce any result whatever from the Arch. The first attempts would fail, horribly, as we saw. Our technical genius would start with the easiest template to imprint, one that had been imprinted before."

"Martha. You imprinted her into your brain in 1913 so that John Smith would trust her," mused Jack.

"Give the man a medal!" The Doctor frowned, his manic energy stilled for a moment. "Say, when did I tell you about that?"

"Sorry, Doc. Time is fragile." A hint of amusement played across the corners of Jack's mouth.

"Moving on! Now, what was it all for? Your story, Jack, gives us the next piece of the puzzle." The Doctor gave his friend a nod. "Your ex-partner from the Time Agency stole my Chameleon Arch - how did he do that again?"

"No idea," said Jack, avoiding eye contact.

"Well, that's water under the bridge for now. Though of course, water under the bridge can be very dangerous, if the bridge collapses. Especially if that water is infested with Xaphasian giant sawfish hungry for the flesh of - " Lucilius gave a polite cough, still pretending not to listen, but the Doctor took the hint. "Right. Well, this Arch-thief needs to go undercover, but he doesn't have the prodigious skill required to repair the Chameleon Arch. So he goes to the only person on Erash with the credentials to do it. This person is ruthless - the Erashi that were transformed in those dreadful experiments weren't exactly volunteers."

"Why them?" said Lucilius, hollowly. "Why did they die while I survive?"

A shadow flickered across the Doctor's eyes. "There's no rhyme or reason with people like these. All of you were just test subjects to them, not sentient beings worthy of any dignity or consideration. We know why they needed those people to die. The engineer who fixed the Arch needed to test it. We still don't know why you wear the body and mind of the Captain." He made a perfunctory bounce on his heels, as if to shake the dark mood. "I don't know why Scholar Garet would have done it. He's the only one with the proper credentials, though - "

"Scholar Garet?" exclaimed Korath from the helm. "The famous engineer?"

"No, the Scholar Garet who juggles fire in the traveling circus," said the Doctor, throwing up his hands. "Of course I'm talking about the engineer! According to the records I found in the archives, all the missing students were connected to him in some way - he was their teacher, or they shared data with him, or they lived near him. That's why - oh, hello, what's that?"

Jack and Lucilius followed the Doctor's gaze to the bottom of the lake. Something vast and white glittered in the waters. For a moment, it looked alive, like a slumbering whale, but its rough crags and metallic luster revealed it to be a rock formation. Korath stayed at the controls of the skimmer, giving the giant rock only a brief glance. "That is the Kaihalu," she said softly. "There is a legend about it in this town."

"I do love a good legend," the Doctor said, leaning out over the edge of the boat and watching the Kaihalu.

For the first time all day, Lucilius looked something besides unhappy - Jack wasn't sure whether it was eagerness, wistfulness, or just idle curiosity. "Yes," said Lucilius. "Please tell us." Jack gave an encouraging smile and a nod.

Korath's voice fell into a lilting rhythm that Jack assumed must be the traditional storytelling mode for her culture. She did not stir from the controls; her words told the story, not her body. "There was once a Viceroy of Laketown, whose name is now lost to time. She was a benevolent ruler and the pride of her line. She had three daughters, all of whom were well qualified to inherit the title of Viceroy. To decide who would earn her title, the Viceroy hid her crown of office and created a puzzle to recover it that would require all of her daughters' cunning, ingenuity, and strength to solve. The first daughter to find the crown would be deemed worthy to wear it."

Her voice wobbled out of pattern every time she said the word "daughter," but she continued without pause. "The three daughters followed a series of clues, obstacles, and traps until they learned the hiding place of the crown. It was buried in the silt at the lake's bottom. On the third sunset of their quest, the three daughters dove into the lake at the same instant. When they discovered that they had found the crown simultaneously, the daughters fought each other for it underwater. In the end, all three drowned."

"The Viceroy was distraught. Her daughters were dead because of their greed, and her line would end with no one to inherit her title and carry on the traditions of her foremothers. In her grief, she decided that the only solution was to become immortal, so that death would never end her lineage. So she traveled the world in search of the secret of immortality." A vein twitched in Jack's temple at this turn of the tale, but Korath did not see anything but her story.

"The Viceroy's foremothers were ashamed of her arrogance. Only the ancestral spirits are allowed eternity; all earthy things must pass. One of the foremothers took the form of an old hermit and spoke a warning to the Viceroy. 'In order to become immortal,' she said, 'you must renounce your title, deny your lineage, and forsake your foremothers. Then you will join your daughters in oblivion and sin in the depths of the lake.' The Viceroy, in her folly, took her foremother's warning as a guide to immortality. She struck her family name from the royal archives, cast aside her crown, cursed her foremothers, and dove into the lake where her daughters lay."

"The foremothers granted her what she had so desired. They transformed her into the Kaihalu, where she will dwell for eternity as a warning to the future of the price she paid for immortality." Korath cast the Kaihalu one last look, then turned her attention back to the controls of the skimmer.

"Good story," said Jack grimly, and no one spoke another word for the rest of the journey, not even the Doctor.


	7. I Can't Believe It's You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Oh, oh, oh, is there anybody home?  
> Who will believe me, won't deceive me, won't try to change me?  
> Oh, oh, oh, is there anybody home?  
> Who wants to love me, just to love me?"  
> \- "Stuck in the Middle" by Mika

"Office tower, Scholars' level, Engineering sublevel," announced the Doctor, punching the appropriate buttons in the omnidirectional elevator. The Cog and Wheel Technical Institute was built for maximum efficiency, both for use of space and ease of navigation. The corridors were no larger than was strictly necessary to move both people and equipment safely through them. The location of every lab, office, and classroom was organized by department. The building was insulated and ventilated for energy efficiency. Every structure was strictly functional, which in the Doctor's opinion made the whole place look grim and boring.

Lucilius licked his lips nervously. "Are any of us armed? For when we find him?"

"Doctor, was I really that trigger-happy when I first started traveling with you?" quipped Jack. Lucilius cowered like a scolded puppy and turned to Korath, as if for protection or solace, but she was unmoved.

"Jack, be nice," warned the Doctor as the elevator doors glided open to reveal a chrome corridor with evenly spaced doors, each with a plaque engraved with the occupant's name. Next to the elevator was a reception desk molded into the wall. Behind the desk was a pert young Erashi with a security badge that read "Assistant Serelaith."

Korath spotted the door marked with Garet's name and stationed herself beside it. Jack leaned on the reception desk and flashed Serelaith one of those smiles that made the recipient feel like the only person who mattered in the world. "Good day, Assistant." The Doctor gave a long-suffering sigh, but let Jack do what he did so well.

Serelaith's antennae furled slowly. The waves of heat, the intoxicating charm - they were familiar now, after her encounter with the Scholar's mysterious human visitor. But this man lacked the other man's steel edge, the silky trace of poison beneath the smile. Somehow, she found herself opening up to the human in exactly the same way she swore she never would after that unnerving evening. "Good day, sir. May I be of any assistance to you?" She felt a pang of self-loathing as she found herself falling for the same tricks all over again.

As it turned out, she couldn't even hide that self-loathing from the charming stranger. She would have thought he was telepathic if she didn't know better about his species. His voice lowered in pitch and volume, and his body curved toward her, which she had learned in Assistance training was the body language for empathy in his species. "Rough day?" he said. The vocal apparatus of humans could never get her language quite right, but his inflection was as close to perfect as those soft mouthparts and moist ligaments could produce.

"Rough day? It's been a rough...oh, sod it." Why was she being taken in by a dizzying human stranger yet again? "You must know him. There was a man who used to come and visit Scholar Garet. He said his name was Agent Merle, but I didn't believe it, or anything else he said. He frightened me terribly. Please tell me he won't come back."

Korath gave an Erashi salute, clacking her pincers together. "Assistant, I am an officer of the peace assigned to this case. These aliens are aiding me in the investigation. Any information you can give us is much appreciated. Justice will be served."

The officer's crisp confidence was infectious. Serelaith saluted back. "There are is another human who has been visiting Scholar Garet frequently as of late. Her skin and hair is much darker than those of these humans," she said, gesturing to Jack, Lucilius, and the Doctor. "She is in Scholar Garet's waiting room right now. I can unlock the door for you."

"Thank you, Assistant Serelaith," said the Doctor, smiling. "Please do."

Serelaith entered a security code into her computer, and the door gave a little _click_. "The Scholar is in his office, but he will not take visitors at this time. Shall I inform him of your presence?"

"Better not," said Jack. "And again, Assistant, thanks." He flashed her another one of his blinding smiles. The Doctor rolled his eyes, then followed him through the door. Korath stood watch in the doorway, while Lucilius lingered, too apprehensive to go in quite yet. Then he heard gasps and squeals of delight that gave him the confidence to enter.

Jack, Martha, and the Doctor embraced in a tangle of limbs while Lucilius looked on in bemusement. "Martha! How'd you get here?" the Doctor exclaimed.

"No idea," said Martha, never losing her smile. "Last thing I remember I was in the med bay of the TARDIS. You and me and Donna had just been on Messaline, and I was a right mess after almost drowning. The TARDIS was scanning me, and then my memory just...stops. Next thing I know I'm in some sort of medical lab surrounded by giant insects!" Her eyes crinkled mischievously at the corners. "So, naturally, I decided to investigate."

"Oh, Martha Jones," said the Doctor fondly, bouncing a little on his heels. "Do tell."

"Hang on a minute," said Martha. "Why are there _two Jacks?_"

"Don't sound so disappointed. Isn't two of me a dream come true? I'm wounded," said Jack. His levity tautened. "Martha, meet Lucilius. He's a copy of me made by the Chameleon Arch. Lucilius, this is our old friend, Martha Jones." He redirected his attention to Martha. "We have an inkling that Scholar Garet is behind all of this."

"Funny. So do I." Martha fished a scrap of paper out of her jacket. "I've been posing as an exchange student to the Institute, trying to get into Garet's good graces. I have an appointment with him in a few minutes. I got a peek into the records in his office, and I think he's hiding something in this room." She handed the paper to the Doctor. "It's behind an unmarked door. I'll meet you back here in the waiting room later."

"Hmm." The Doctor eyed the paper. "That's in the physics lab section." He put the paper in one of his improbable pockets. "Well, what are we waiting for? _Allons-y_!" He dashed toward the door, then looked back and gave Martha an exhilarating grin. "Good luck, Martha."

"Be careful," said Jack, giving Martha's hand one last squeeze. "The Scholar's dangerous. Don't underestimate him."

"I can handle myself, Captain." Her voice went husky. "I did it for a year."

"Come on!" shouted the Doctor from the corridor, and Jack and Martha were forced to part. He, Korath, and Lucilius followed him to the elevator. "What would the Scholar be hiding in the physics lab section? It isn't his department," muttered the Doctor as he punched buttons. The elevator gave a sideways lurch, then glided open. "All the way at the end of the corridor, to the right!" They all ran after him and ground to a halt in front of the unmarked door. It didn't have a key slot or a handle, but a quick wave of the sonic screwdriver (hastily borrowed from Jack) made it slide open. The chamber within was completely dark. The four of them filed in slowly, apprehensively. The door slid shut again of its own accord.

"There's nothing in here," said Lucilius petulantly.

"Wait a minute," said the Doctor. He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the seam where the wall met the ceiling. An orange pinwheel-shaped light blinked on. The Doctor exhaled sharply. "That's the symbol for kairic radiation." His face was eerily backlit by the blue light from the screwdriver and the orange light from the symbol on the wall. "Jack. Lucilius. If the three of us are exposed to full-strength kairic radiation for more than 60 seconds, we're going to fry like eggs."


	8. Run For Your Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "One need not be a chamber to be haunted,  
> One need not be a house;  
> The brain has corridors surpassing  
> Material place."  
> \- Emily Dickinson

"What about me?" said Korath, her antennae waving agitatedly. The orange light was reflected a hundred times over in the facets of her compound eyes.

"Your species evolved during a period with very high kairic radiation. You can take it for longer than we can. Stand in front of the light - that's where the radiation's coming from - and you can shield us," said the Doctor, talking at top speed. He scanned the door with Jack's sonic screwdriver. "Deadlock sealed." Korath seemed too paralyzed to move. "Officer, I promise that I will get us out of here before the radiation levels get high enough to harm you. Now please stand in front of the light so my friends and I don't die." Korath moved into place, and he set to work on the door.

"I can stand in front of the radiation too," said Jack. "I'll survive." He stepped around Lucilius, who had curled up, trembling, in the corner of the room furthest from the radiation emitter.

"No, Jack. You'll die." Jack gave him a dark look. The Doctor sighed. "And dragging out your body will slow us down." Jack seemed grudgingly satisfied with this answer. "You don't have to be a martyr, Jack. Just because you come back when you die doesn't mean you should die."

Korath gave a little start. "What? What do you mean, Doctor?" Lucilius looked at Jack with abject fear and a little awe in his eyes.

"I'll explain later!" the Doctor roared, and the others fell silent. The only sounds were the slight hum of the radiation emitter and the buzz of the sonic screwdriver.

The tips of Korath's antennae were beginning to tingle unpleasantly, but she hid her fear under her police training. An officer of the law could never lose composure, or the civilians would panic as well. Yet despite the danger, the Captain and the Doctor were clearly less frightened than she was. These were the people she entrusted to help find Raihel, and they weren't afraid. Korath wasn't sure whether this knowledge was unsettling or reassuring, but in her gut she trusted the Doctor to keep them safe, even as her vision began to swim from the intensity of the radiation.

Then came a clunk and a hiss, and the door slid back open.

The four tumbled out and landed in a heap. "Mmmf!" shouted the Doctor from the bottom of the pile. Korath disentangled herself and helped Lucilius to his feet, which gave Jack room to roll off the Doctor. He got to his feet, his hair crazier than ever, and winced. Lucilius watched the Doctor anxiously, and made a move as if to help support the Doctor, but seemed to think better of it and stayed put.

"Is it such a tragedy to have me on top of you, Doc? I know I enjoyed it," Jack teased, trying to relieve the tension.

"Yes, it is," said the Doctor, and stashed his glasses in a pocket. "You're heavy."

"Do you always talk this way after narrowly escaping disaster?" said Korath, the tips of her antennae still shaking a little.

"Are you all right, Doctor?" Lucilius blurted out, his voice overlapping with Korath's. He flushed, but didn't look away.

"Not to worry, Lucilius," said the Doctor, his voice carefully light. "If I weren't all right, you wouldn't be either. My body is slightly more resistant to kairic radiation than yours." There was a significant pause before the word "yours" that made Lucilius feel as if there were larvae of some angry gnat burrowing under his skin. He didn't know what to feel. Deep down, he knew he was merely furniture in the Doctor's life. Yet that other self, the voice of Jack Harkness, sang to him that this man was the only hope of the universe, a light that must never go out. That voice compelled him to care, and it made him miserable.

"So, this is what the Scholar's been hiding?" said Lucilius, eager to change the subject. "A radiation chamber?"

"No," said the Doctor. "Kairic radiation's bog-standard for physics experiments. No need to hide it. If I'd bothered to check the floor plan of the building, it would have been clearly marked." A dark look passed between Jack and the Doctor.

"Then Scholar Garet must have given Martha false information," said Lucilius. "A plant."

"Lucilius," said the Doctor. His voice seemed to cast shadows across the corridor. "The information wasn't the plant. Martha was."

"What?" said Korath and Lucilius, her in confusion, him in horror.

"I'm sorry. I should have seen it before." The apology was soothing to Lucilius, even though it was clear from the Doctor's every movement that it was directed at Jack. "Martha never disappeared from the med bay after Messaline. But the TARDIS did a full medical scan, including a neural scan and a DNA sample. More than enough to create a template for the Chameleon Arch."

"Funny," muttered Lucilius. "My memory stops when I - uh, he - was helping you with a maintenance check, Doctor."

"I remember," said Jack grimly. "We did some maintenance on the Arch. Lubricated the couplings." A cold, sinking feeling settled in Lucilius' stomach. If Jack wasn't making a quip about lubricating the couplings, something was seriously amiss.

A hot, heavy silence pooled in the air. Korath broke through. "Would anyone care to explain why the Captain cannot die?"

Jack couldn't tell whether her expression was of fear or loathing. "I can die," he said. Over the years he had learned to say it with only mild bitterness. "It just doesn't stick." That look was loathing, he realized. "I'm not the Kaihalu, Officer. I didn't ask for this. Don't think I haven't spent decades - centuries - wishing for a normal life."

The Doctor's eyes were glassy, focused on some point beyond space. "She may not even know she's not herself." He gave his head a tiny shake and started to pace. "Or she may be loosely imprinted like Lucilius and only pretending to be Martha. We don't know if she's in league with the Scholar or not."

"Any way we can find out?" said Jack.

"Ask Assistant Serelaith," Korath said. "It is her duty to help us protect the Institute."

"I think we may have a question or two for her," said the Doctor. "Come on!" He and Jack ran for the elevator, their coats unfurling behind them like wings. Korath ground her mandibles together in what Lucilius imagined was a long-suffering way, then gestured for him to follow.

Fear stood beside them in the elevator, and everyone seemed to have some way to deflect it except Lucilius. The Doctor kept it at bay with an endless stream of chatter. Jack grinned falsely and interposed a joke in the Doctor's patter from time to time, his grim humor and his dark coat shielding him. Korath seemed to think that if she stayed as stiff and silent as possible, the fear would pass her by. Lucilius knew what his other self wanted to do: flirt shamelessly with everyone in the elevator, warding off the fear with the twin talismans of sex and charm. But that wasn't who Lucilius really was. He let the fear seep into his bones and shuddered a little at the cold ache of it.

"Oh!" said Serelaith when they emerged from the elevator. "There you are! The other human said you would not return. It is a relief that you did." Four sets of jaws, humanoid and insectile, clenched.

Jack's breath hissed out between his teeth. He leaned on Serelaith's desk, closed his eyes, then looked up at her. "Assistant, believe me when I say we won't let any harm come to you. But you have to listen."

"What he's saying is," the Doctor cut in, "that the Scholar is trying to kill us, and we need your help."


	9. Not a Safe Place to Stand

What was it about these two men that laid fears and doubts to rest? Korath could see the same signs in Serelaith that she felt in herself: the loosening of the shoulder joints, the relaxed hinges of the pincers. "What can I do?" said the assistant.

"Do you have a security camera feed?" asked the Doctor. She gave a flick of the antennae that he interpreted as the equivalent of a nod. "We'll be in the waiting room in a moment. When I give the signal - " He snapped his fingers. "Open the door to the Scholar's office. No matter what happens in there, don't call the police unless I signal. Don't let anyone else in." For a moment, the storm subsided. Even his hair seemed a little less manic. "And thanks."

"May your ancestral spirits smile on you," said Serelaith. The Doctor and Lucilius frowned a little.

At least Lucilius had the decency to look ashamed that his memories of family were not his own, Jack thought reproachfully. The fact that Lucilius had all of his childhood memories made him feel a little violated. Mostly, though, he was concerned about the Doctor. Ancestry wasn't the best concept to evoke in him before he had to enter a dangerous situation. "Hey, you've all got me smiling on you. Nothing to worry about," he joked, gently.

"Famous last words," Lucilius mumbled. Jack and the Doctor ignored him and burst into the waiting room.

Martha gave a yelp of surprise, then composed herself. "Doctor! Jack! Great to see you."

"You can quit the act. We know you're not Martha," said Jack.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"You were surprised when we came in. You knew we weren't supposed to survive the radiation chamber." Jack and the Doctor looked down at her from their considerable heights. Korath, taller than both men, entered and watched her with cool appraisal. "You didn't count on us having help from the locals."

"Overestimated their petty xenophobia," said the Doctor, watching her haughtily down the length of his nose. "Officer Korath here doesn't care if we have four limbs or six, as long as we work in the cause of justice."

Lucilius came in, closing the circle around the false Martha. Jack, Korath, and the Doctor looked at him, startled. His shoulders were squared, his jaw set. The Martha-thing recoiled. "We can do this the easy way," said Lucilius. He grabbed her by the collar. "Or we can do it the hard way. Who are you?"

Jack wrested the false Martha from Lucilius' grasp, then seized his double by the shoulders and pulled him close until their faces were a breath apart. Lucilius squirmed, his air of command dissipated. "It's what you would have done," he blurted.

"That's who I was," said Jack. He let Lucilius go. "It's not who I am now." Lucilius staggered backward until he found support against a wall. He wanted to say something, anything, to redeem himself, but Jack was talking to the false Martha now. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy is you tell us who you are right now. The hard way is that the good officer here takes you to jail and keeps you there until we find out who you are. And we will find out. We're very clever." He smiled without warmth, and the Doctor gave a little wave.

The false Martha crumpled suddenly. Korath had to position a pincer between her shoulder blades to keep her from falling over. "Please don't change me back," she said hollowly. She looked up at Jack and the Doctor, eyes wide and pleading, and let the words fall out of her in a rush. "I'm Technician Haisel. That's who I am, honest. Oh, please, Doctor, don't! I - I have congenital chitinosis. My own body has only a year to live. Don't change me back, please. It hurts."

"That shape isn't yours to take," said the Doctor, his voice low and icy and inexorable, like glaciers scraping through mountain passes. "You tried to have us killed."

"I had no idea, I swear," Haisel pleaded. "He just told me to send you to that place and that only Jack was supposed to come back. I didn't know. I would have done anything for him, I was just so grateful to be able to walk again." She took Jack by the hand. "You know what he's capable of, Jack. Don't let him. He'll destroy me."

Lucilius looked at Haisel as if seeing her for the first time. Bile rose in his throat as he thought of how he'd treated her just a moment before. His breath seeped out slowly in relief when the Doctor said, "I won't destroy you, or anyone. I've left those ways behind. I'm going to fix you." Haisel let her hand fall away from Jack's. "Look into her memories. You know I can." She gave the tiniest of nods. "Good. Now, what can you tell us about Scholar Garet?"

Haisel sank bonelessly against one of the walls, perpendicular to Lucilius. She closed her eyes. "He found me in the prosthetics unit, recovering from a joint replacement. He said he was developing a new technology that wouldn't be on the market for years that could replace my body with a young and healthy one. It would be an alien body, he said, but I didn't care. I just wanted the pain to end." A shadow of her suffering contorted her brow, then flickered away. "The transformation hurt, but not as much it did to move my legs or turn my head. Then it was all gone. All he wanted me to do in return was to pretend to be Martha, send you to that place, then let Jack into his office. He was expecting you." She opened her eyes, looked at Korath, and laughed a little. "But you're right. He didn't expect her."

"What has he got in his office, Technician Haisel?" The Doctor leaned in a little, eyes intense. "Why does he want Jack in there?"

"There's more to the office than meets the eye," she said. Her head was canted to one side, as if she were trying to deflect the Doctor's scrutiny. "He's got a transmat in there somewhere. That's where he keeps the device that transformed me. All of his hidden things. I don't know why he wants Jack."

"Hidden things," Jack repeated.

"I don't know," said Haisel. "I'm a software technician. I don't know what any of the things were, but he definitely wanted them hidden."

"We're going to find the Scholar. Please don't try to leave, or I'll have to stop you." The Doctor snapped his fingers, and a moment later, the door to the office unlocked with a click. "Thank you, Serelaith."

Jack opened the door. As soon as he crossed the threshold, several things happened at once. There was an almost imperceptible beep, then a whistling noise as a dart flew towards Jack's neck, seemingly out of nowhere. Korath grabbed Jack's shoulder in a pincer and shoved him to the side. Jack instinctively held up his arms to cover his head, and the dart ended up piercing the back of his hand instead of his neck. He gave a little hiss of pain. The dart disappeared, and a moment later, so did Jack. Haisel and Lucilius screamed. Korath lurched forward to go in and rescue Jack, but the Doctor held her back.

"I'm good at teleports," he said. He held out Jack's screwdriver. It buzzed briefly, then Jack reappeared and staggered out of Garet's office, trembling with dizziness and something more.

"There's another Martha in there," said Jack, once his reflexes were under control. "She's been tortured."


	10. Second Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Death is a dialogue between   
> The spirit and the dust.   
> 'Dissolve,' says Death. The Spirit, 'Sir,   
> I have another trust.'"  
> \- Emily Dickinson

"I won't tell you," spat Martha. "Why don't you ask one of your _experiments_?" She looked at the poor, suffering creatures who wore pieces of her flesh like burning chains. The stronger ones, the ones who could coordinate their twisted limbs, threw themselves at the plexisteel walls of their cages; whether it was an attempt to escape or to end their suffering, Martha didn't know. The weaker ones lay in contorted heaps, gasping their misery if their vocal cords were whole enough.

"Their minds are incomplete." Garet stood beside the stretcher to which Martha was chained, speaking with infuriating calm. "The neural template is present, but on a fundamental level, they retain their consciousness. They know how you think and feel, but they know on a fundamental level that they are not Martha Jones. Your memories are distant to them, stories from someone else's life. I need the information from you."

_Like John Smith,_ Martha thought. _The Doctor was always there, just beneath the surface._ "Why me?" she said, just to keep him talking, to keep him from using any of the cruel instruments that glinted on a tray at the foot of the stretcher.

"You were the simplest to imprint. In the device's data banks, there was a fabricated template. Vastly inferior to using a true personality, but it contained knowledge of you. Since the device had imprinted a part of you before, it was better at reconstructing you than any of the others." At last, a note of emotion colored Garet's tone. It was complacence. "I have learned much from my experiments. I learned to add elements to the neural template, such as the ability to speak my language. I can also produce perfect replicas of you at will. Therefore, there is no need to be delicate with this interrogation. Should you die in the process, I shall simply create another copy of you."

Suddenly, Martha wondered if she wasn't the first. Maybe she was just another successor in a long line of Marthas, each one yielding new information as Garet's torture methods became more and more effective. She shuddered, then hated herself for the show of fear. "Why are you telling me this?"

"It is to show you that any attempt to withhold information is useless." Garet's multifaceted eyes were blank and inscrutable as he retrieved from the tray a vial of liquid that Martha knew from UNIT training would make her go slowly and painfully blind. "I repeat the question. To whom does the triple-stranded DNA belong?"

"How should I know?" Martha bluffed. She tried to banish from her head the diagrams from medical training of what the yellow liquid would do to her eyes.

"The biodata was collected regularly over the course of centuries. The evidence suggests that it is the DNA of the device's owner. Who is it?" He tilted the vial so that its contents glittered amber in the dim light.

"He's the Doctor," said Martha, her voice suddenly as even as Garet's. "Look him up. Then run far, far away, because when he finds out what you've done - " Garet produced a syringe from the tray and jabbed it in her arm. The world became small, fuzzy, and dark.

What came next could have been dreams or hallucinations; Martha's thoughts were too muddled to know the difference. A thousand strangers who wore her face were all whispering at the same time, but she couldn't make out what any of them were saying. She shrank to the size of a dandelion seed and floated on the wind forever.

Heaviness weighted her, and Martha was fettered to the ground again. She awoke with a tiny sob. Her dreams were cold and dark, but at least _he_ wasn't there. Once the fog in her mind dissipated, she could make out Garet saying, "The Time Lord is dead."

"You're wrong," said Martha. Her words emerged painfully from her cracked lips. "He's centuries old. He's immortal. Better start running, Garet."

"I have researched this Doctor. He was not immortal." There was something new in Garet - from the way he gnashed his mandibles, Martha guessed it was hunger. "He was something very near it, however. It is thought that he was well over a millennium old when he died."

"He's not dead!"

"Sorry, Martha," said Garet, cool and clipped. "The Doctor will not rescue you. He died on the planet Emmeras some time ago. Your information was valuable, however. You might say I have a reward for you today. I will show you someone I believe you know well." His legs clicked against the sterile floor as he left the room.

Martha trembled with the effort not to cry in front of the alien. Garet never lied to her, not once. She wanted to believe that this was the exception, but her gut was sick with the feeling that it was true. _The Doctor is dead,_ she thought. It sounded like an inherent falsehood, like saying that two plus two equals five.

Garet with another stretcher in tow. There was a human figure on it, covered by a sheet. It wasn't one of the experiments; its outline was smooth and whole. Garet parked the stretcher next to Martha's and pulled off the sheet. Her breath caught. "Cor Thal. Abraxas. Lucilius. Captain Jack Harkness. Judging by your physiological response, your friend."

Jack was still breathing; Martha guessed that he got the drug she did. She fought the urge to be sick as Garet leaned down and caressed her friend's face with his antennae. The fact that Jack might have enjoyed the contact under very different circumstances only made it worse. Slowly, Garet pulled away. "Is it true? Is he immortal?"

"I'm not telling you anything about Jack." She watched him breathe. "Oh God, he's going to kill you. Horribly." The thought of her smiling, caring Jack, tearing Garet apart limb by limb -

"I could find out." Garet held a scalpel to Jack's jugular. "Or you could tell me."

A leaden sense of futility crawled through Martha's veins."You don't know what it's like," she whispered. "He told me. He's had to watch his lovers die, his family. Everything he cares about just fades away."

"I have no family." Garet's voice went feather-soft. "I have only my life." He pressed the scalpel to Jack's jugular, and watched with serene calm as the life's blood ebbed out onto the stretcher and the floor. Martha raged and cried and strained against her chains. It made no difference. If the Doctor was dead, who could save them?

Garet kept silent vigil over the body for what felt like eternity. He didn't come back to life.

"I believe my biodata is incomplete. Tell me, Martha," said Garet, clasping the vial of blinding fluid in a pincer. "How can I trap the immortal?"


	11. Someone to Stop You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Nay, do not ask this week, my lord,   
> Where they are gone, nor yet this year;   
> I only give you this refrain:  
> Where are the snows of yesteryear?"  
> \- "Ballade des dames du temps jadis" by François Villon

Korath's mind raced, trying to focus on anything but Jack's words. A swarm of unrelated details crowded her mind: the precise shade of mauve of the waiting room ceiling, the height of the doorframe, the glittering white rock in a display case in Garet's office. It looked like the Kaihalu – but what did it matter? What did it matter Jack and the Doctor's friend was suffering?

"Was the Scholar in there?" the Doctor asked. Jack nodded. "All right, on count of three, we all walk in. Lucilius' arms shook; Korath took position next to him so he would have someone to hold on to if need be. "One, two, three!" the Doctor cried, and they stepped across the threshold side by side.

With a sickening downward lurch, they teleported into what looked like a dimly lit hospital room. Along one wall was a row of empty holding cells, floors spattered with blood and other secretions. At the other end of the room, a pale, spindly Erashi tinkered with the Chameleon Arch that hung from the ceiling. On their end of the room, laid out on a stretcher, Martha Jones clung to the fringe of life.

Without a word exchanged, Korath and Lucilius edged away from Martha and toward Scholar Garet. Just being near him made Lucilius feel ill, but there was a shroud of despair and loneliness surrounding Martha that he didn't dare to penetrate.

It was only when the Doctor and Jack came very near that Martha showed any awareness of them. All that remained of her eyes were dark ruins. The inner shells of her ears were caked in dried blood. Every part of her that could be torn, chipped at, or broken, was in tatters.

The Doctor took what remained of her hand in his. "Martha." He swallowed. "It's me."

"And me. Jack." He took her other hand and squeezed, very gently.

"Doctor. Jack. I've been having the most terrible dream. Can you make it go away?" Her parched throat strained to form each word.

"We will." The Doctor looked up at Jack. "Stay with her." Jack kissed Martha on the forehead. Even as her breathing became slower, easier, his lungs felt frozen in his chest. The stench of blood and sweat from Martha, the mechanical noise of Garet's footsteps, the little chokes and gasps as Lucilius tried to hold back his panic, were sensations that made Jack's head swim with anger and disgust until he could just couldn't _think_ anymore.

The Doctor drew away from Martha's bedside. Scholar Garet was standing under the Chameleon Arch, the mechanism attached to his head. "This stops now," said the Doctor in a low growl. "I've looked through your library history, Scholar. You've done the research. You know the sort of man I am. Disengage the Chameleon Arch, or I'll have to stop you." The Doctor's nerves were electric. He wanted to jump up, climb the walls, yell, pull at his hair, build a machine out of popsticle sticks and peanut butter that would force Garet to give up, anything, anything to stop this madness before someone got hurt. _Just please, please, don't make me do this. Don't inflict me on yourself. Make me stop,_ he thought in silent prayer.

Garet ignored him.

Korath watched, transfixed, as Garet twisted the dials on the Chameleon Arch. "The Kaihalu. He had a model of it in his office," she said, slowly, like the first drowsy mumblings of a person waking from a long sleep. "The dart. Doctor, the dart." As Korath's voice grew louder and more frantic, so did the rasp of her thrumming wings. "He collected the Captain's biodata! He's the Kaihalu!" Flecks of white foam flew from her mouth as her voice rose to a shriek. "Make him stop!"

Garet wiped away a droplet of her spit that landed between his eyes. Silently, he continued adjusting the Chameleon Arch.

"I can't," said the Doctor through bared teeth. "His brain's already fully engaged with the circuits in the Arch. If I disable the Arch, he'll die screaming."

Lucilius felt like he was huddling in the shadows of giants. Martha's suffering, Jack's disgust, Korath's manic terror, the dark ruthlessness just under the Doctor's skin, and Garet's unyielding indifference to it all – what could he do? Some dark script had already been written, and he was just a spectator.

Korath gave a shriek of wordless rage and lunged toward Garet, pincers poised for his throat.

Lucilius cried out and launched himself at Korath. They collided into the lab bench. Flasks, bottles, and instruments shattered everywhere. Korath rolled on top of Lucilius to shield him from the raining glass, which bounced off her exoskeleton harmlessly.

The cacophony of frantic shouts and broken glass ended. Korath's mandibles gnashed as she tried to get back to her feet, but Lucilius was faster, and pinned her gently against the lab bench. "Why are you defending the abomination?" she spat.

Lucilius' throat worked. He couldn't find the right words. The only sound was Jack's quiet murmur of reassurance to Martha.

With a flare of white light, the Chameleon Arch activated. Garet screeched as his limbs curled and twisted. It took all of Lucilius' willpower not to look away. He knew, from Jack's memories, the depths to which a person could sink, but he had yet to truly understand them.

"Because I don't want you to become it, Korath," said Lucilius at last.

Jack stroked Martha's blood-caked hair, repeating, "Hush, Martha, I'm here." The glow of the Chameleon Arch reflected eerily in the Doctor's eyes as he watched, teeth and fists clenched. There was a blinding flash.

Nothing happened.

The moment ended as it began. Garet was himself: nothing less, nothing more. There was a beat of yawning silence, then the Doctor broke it. He took out the sonic screwdriver and scanned the Chameleon Arch, his eyes widening as he took in the readings.

"What happened?" said Lucilius.

The Doctor put the sonic screwdriver away. "Well…" he said, drawing out the word. He raked his hand backward through his hair."The Chameleon Arch doesn't work on people who have already been transformed."

Everyone stared. Finally, Garet spoke. "I must be cleverer than I imagined."

"I don't think so, Scholar Garet." The Doctor put his hands in his trouser pockets and took a step toward the Erashi. "You wanted Jack's biodata to become immortal. Of course, you didn't know that it isn't his genes that make him immortal, but that's beside the point. You knew that Jack would try to stop you. So you created a copy of yourself in the belief that Jack would kill the copy, leaving you free to come out of hiding and imprint yourself with his biodata."

Garet disengaged the Chameleon Arch and stepped out from under it. "Which means I sabotaged myself."

The Doctor jabbed his finger at Garet. The Erashi froze. "_Don't_ interrupt. The longer I talk, the longer you've got before I change you back." His voice was so sharp the air seemed to bleed in its wake. "You sabotaged yourself because you made three mistakes. The first was your assumption that Jack would kill you. He's a better man than that." The corner of Jack's mouth quirked upward. "The second was that you didn't think we'd have help from the Erashi themselves. Officer Korath and Assistant Serelaith have been of invaluable service. But your biggest mistake was to underestimate the impact of the personalities you imprinted."

"In every meaningful way, you _are_ Scholar Garet, just as _she_ – " He pointed at the broken figure of Martha. " – is Martha Jones. A perfect copy. You seek immortality just as the original did. Your plans conflicted with his. You set up Technician Haisel to send Jack and anyone with him to the radiation chamber so he would be the only one left. You thought you could do it, that Jack couldn't stop you. Now you've gone and ruined your original plan. You were supposed to die so the original could live. Now, there's only one mistake I don't understand." He pointed at Lucilius. "Why did you let him go free?"

"I hardly expected Jack Harkness to show up on my doorstep at my convenience, Doctor." Garet curled his mouthparts contemptuously. "I needed bait." Lucilius shuddered in quiet revulsion, unable to look Garet in the eye.

The Doctor sighed. He couldn't watch the others suffer anymore. "Time's up. Where do you keep the fobwatches?"

Garet's body twitched in half-realized movements. He looked half-tempted to try to escape despite the obvious futility of it. Then he was still. "Storage unit over the lab bench," he said at last. "Combination aqua-three-one-ten."

"Watch him for me," the Doctor said to Korath and Lucilius. They stood and flanked Garet. The Doctor reached on tiptoe, entered the combination, and gathered the contents of the storage unit in his hands. They were four gunmetal grey cases. He held one up to the dim light. It was engraved "Imprint: Scholar Garet." He opened the case and traced the Gallifreyan writing on the watch with his fingertips. "Oh, Jack," he murmured. "You won't be happy about this."

The fobwatch was nestled in the Doctor's palms, though he couldn't seem to decide whether to hold it close, like a precious gift, or at arm's length, like a curse. Garet tried to turn away, but Korath and Lucilius seized his arms and held him in place. The Doctor held the fobwatch between the Scholar's big lustrous eyes and opened it.

Golden light rushed forth and diffused through Garet's body. With yelps of surprise, Lucilius and Korath let go of his arms as he turned inside out, his flesh bubbling outward and his skeleton sinking in. Joints cracked and disappeared as his body shrank and solidified into a humanoid shape. When the light dissipated, there stood a leanly muscled man with brown hair and high cheekbones, naked as the day he was born. "Merle, you fool!" Jack gasped.

The Time Agent crouched into a predatory stance. "Where is he?" he snarled. "Where is that overgrown bedbug? I'm going to rip his - " Jack passed Korath a sleep-inducing hypospray, which she pressed to the agent's neck.

"Sorry, Doc. I had to." said Jack. "This is a bad point in his timeline to see me." He took his place at Martha's bedside once more. "I still can't believe he came back. He should have realized that Garet would turn on him." Jack shook his head in wonder.

The Doctor looked at the Time Agent's prone form, his gaze distant, looking beyond him rather than at him. Jack tried to imagine what the entangled timelines would look like to Time Lord senses. "Right," the Doctor said, awakening suddenly from his reverie. "We'll find him clothes and leave him somewhere safe before he wakes."

"If that was a copy of the Scholar," Korath said slowly, "where has the original gone?"

"We'll have to find out. But first." He held up another case, engraved "Imprint: The Immortal (pre-Event)."

"'Pre-Event'?" said Lucilius, peering at the case. "What does that mean?"

Jack felt a bitter taste rise in his mouth. It was hardly the first time he'd seen himself referred to that way, but he could never get used to being reduced to nothing more than a temporal anomaly. "The moment I became immortal. In scholarly articles, they call it the Event."

Lucilius' lips trembled a little as the Doctor took the fobwatch out of the case. The sight of it mesmerized him. A trace of a smile warmed the Doctor's eyes as he swept his thumb across the front of the watch. "Are you ready?" he said.

He wasn't ready. He had no idea what sort of person lay within the fobwatch, whether he wanted to be that person. Korath laid an arm on his shoulder. "Thank you for saving me," she said. "I won't forget." Lucilius exhaled slowly. If Korath saw something in him worth preserving, then it was worth it. He took the watch from the Doctor and opened it.

Suddenly, all the world was wreathed in gold. Every cell of his body burned as Jack Harkness' DNA was purged. Then the light faded, and Jack was gone. So was Lucilius. What remained was...

"Raihel," sighed Korath, sweeping her daughter into her arms. They twined their antennae together and rocked back and forth, lost in each other. "I'm so sorry - I should have known - "

"It's all right, Mother." She gave a chattering laugh. "I didn't know myself." Raihel nestled her head against her mother's throat, the sheet she'd worn as Lucilius pooling around her feet. Korath thought she might never let go. For the first time since her daughter had gone missing, she was home.

"Raihel and I will go now. We need time," said Korath, looking up from her daughter's face for a moment. "If you need me later, visit the constabulary, and they can help you contact me. We owe you so very much."

"Thank you. Both of you," said Jack hoarsely. He thought of the families of Garet's failed experiments. Korath and Raihel were together, and that meant that some fraction of that monstrous wrong had been undone. That was something to be thankful for.

"Your people could learn a lot from you. Don't be afraid to teach them." The corners of the Doctor's mouth turned up. "This is what justice means, Officer. It means that a mother finally finds her daughter." He held out the sonic screwdriver. It buzzed blue, and the Erashi disappeared.

"What's happening?" said Martha, sundering the moment of peace. The hand Jack wasn't holding batted at the air, as if fending off invisible attackers. Her breath came in short gasps. "Jack, is it really you? Make it stop."

The Doctor's smile evaporated. He clasped her flailing arm gently. "Hush, Martha. We're here." He laid her arm at her side.

"It'll be over in a minute. It won't hurt anymore," said Jack in a hoarse whisper. The Doctor held up the two remaining cases, both labeled "Imprint: Martha Jones." He took the watches from their cases. "Which one is hers?" asked Jack.

The Doctor closed his eyes, one fobwatch in each hand, tracing the circles and loops of Gallifreyan writing with his thumbs. He clenched his left hand in a fist. "This one." The Doctor leaned over and kissed Martha on the forehead. "Just relax, Martha." His voice was slightly choked. Jack's eyes were bright with unshed tears. All the tension in Martha's body uncoiled. She trusted them completely, and that hurt worst of all.

In an unspoken agreement, the Doctor and Jack held onto Martha with one hand and clasped the fobwatch in the other. Together, they flicked it open.

The light poured into the ruins of Martha's face, then suffused her body. Her bones shifted outward and encased her flesh. Her body lengthened and thinned. The transformation ended, and at the sight of the body on the stretcher the Doctor clutched at his hair, chanting, "Oh, no, no, nonono..."

The Erashi was as wasted away as Martha had been, her exoskeleton fractured in a dozen places, yellow pus leaking from her joints. "He chose the weak, the sick," murmured Jack. "Like Haisel. The ones who would have tried anything."

"Jack, I can't - " Panic blossomed through the Doctor like lightning. "She hasn't had the proper medication in who knows how long. I can't help her. Without a respirator - she's dying, Jack."

"Teleport me out of here. I'll tell Serelaith to get a medical team."

"It'll be too late."

"We can't just give up!" Jack roared.

The Erashi gave a spasmodic twitch, and her eyes went dark. Jack held his fingers over her spiracles. "She's not breathing." He slid a hand under her back. "No pulse." His breath slid out in a long rattle. "I'm sorry."

The Doctor put his hand on Jack's shoulder. "I'm sorry too." He sighed. "I'm going back. I need to get Merle out of here and restore Haisel to her proper body. I'll have Serelaith call in a medical team to help her when it's over." The Doctor looked haggard and weary. "I'll be back soon. Do me a favor and take those rags off her. Her family won't want to see her like that." He gently touched a pincer. "Her name was Elisaresh. I heard it in the fobwatch."

"Good luck with Haisel." Jack took the Doctor's hand on his shoulder, squeezed it in his own. The Time Lord nodded. He scooped up Merle in his arms, activated the sonic screwdriver, and disappeared.

Jack set to work on stripping the filthy rags from Elisaresh's body. By the time he removed them from her narrow legs, his hands were streaked with grime. He tugged at the rags across her narrow chest, where Martha's heart had been. The outline of a hard, round object stood out beneath the cloth. What could Martha have had left, when everything had been taken from her? His heart in his throat, he eased the rags off Elisaresh, revealing another fobwatch case.

Jack read the engraving on the case and fell against the wall, his pulse thudding thunderously in his ears. The world fell away. Time passed at a crawl, and it could have been anything from a minute to an hour before the Doctor reappeared. Jack forced himself upright and clasped the fobwatch case in his palm so tightly that the engraved letters left marks on his skin. The Doctor was talking, but he couldn't register it.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. I'm so, so sorry." Jack held out the fobwatch. The case read "Imprint: The Doctor."


	12. Falls the Shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "And death shall have no dominion.  
> Dead men naked they shall be one  
> With the man in the wind and the west moon;  
> When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,  
> They shall have stars at elbow and foot;  
> Though they go mad they shall be sane,  
> Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;  
> Though lovers be lost love shall not;  
> And death shall have no dominion."  
> \- "And death shall have no dominion" by Dylan Thomas

Every one of the Doctor's thousand-odd years showed in his eyes, every death he'd been responsible for, every soul he couldn't save. "It's all right, Jack. I know. I knew."

Jack's throat was so tight he could barely speak. "You don't understand. You - you're - "

"Dead." The Doctor swallowed hard – holding back tears, maybe, though it was impossible to know with him. "I began to suspect from the beginning. When you came to my prison cell, you called yourself the Doctor." Somehow, the power of speech seemed to be slowly failing for the Doctor as well. "There's only one reason you ever would."

"I can't watch you die again." Jack clasped the Doctor's arm for balance; there was no other way to stay upright. His throat felt raw, as if he'd been screaming. Maybe he had. "Don't make me."

"Shhhh." The Doctor held Jack's wrist and massaged it, as if calming a frightened animal. "It's all right, Jack. It's OK." The moment Jack felt like he had some control over his body, the Doctor said, "Turn around. Face the wall." Jack obeyed, and noticed the Doctor turning so that they were back to back. "Open the watch, just a little. Enough so you can tell who's in there."

"Promise me you won't change," grated Jack.

"I won't. The fobwatch has a very limited range. I just need to know what's inside. Please." Jack hesitated. "I had a fantastic life, Jack. Didn't I?"

Jack let out a shuddering breath. "Yeah."

"You have the TARDIS' daughter – I can sense her. She lives on. I live on. Through you, Jack. Through everyone who's fought for me. That's what matters."

Slowly, cautiously, Jack prised open the fobwatch. His psychic sense, somewhat sensitized by Time Agency training, swam with loneliness, insignificance, and a sense of being totally lost in the universe, tempered by cold indifference. _I renounce my title, deny my lineage, forsake my foremothers,_ the fobwatch whispered hollowly. When his psychic boundaries could withstand no more, Jack snapped it shut.

The Doctor spoke. "Who is it, Jack?" He couldn't answer. His throat was tight as a vise. "You've got to tell me. Please."

"I think the Scholar decided that if he couldn't have immortality," Jack ground out through protesting sinews, "he'd get the next best thing."

"Of course," said the Doctor, his voice slow and leaden. "The lifespan of a Time Lord." Jack wept quietly. He wanted to embrace the Doctor, to hold him close in their last few moments together, but his traitorous limbs refused to obey.

"Turn around," the Doctor said, and only then did Jack's muscles unlock. He expected to see grief in the Time Lord's eyes, but there was only resignation, and a dark knowledge. The Doctor took Jack in his arms, kissed him on the forehead, and whispered, "Thank you. For all of it. Every last moment. And I'm sorry."

"Don't," choked Jack. "There's nothing to apologize for." That earned him a long, musical sigh from his oldest friend.

The Doctor slipped the fobwatch out of Jack's hands. "When I open it, you know what to do." Jack nodded and took a step back. Part of him longed to close his eyes for what was to come next, but he owed the Doctor more courage than that.

The Time Lord held the fobwatch in front of him and peered at it as if it were nothing more than a curiosity. His other hand clenched and unclenched in erratic rhythms. He inhaled slowly.

Then something brittle and insectile flashed behind the Doctor's eyes. He flung the fobwatch to the ground and crushed it under his heel. The fragments glowed gold and orange, then the light faded. There was nothing left but scraps of metal, dead of meaning and life. All the breath left the Doctor in a slow hiss. He fell back against the wall and slid to the floor.

"It's him, it's him, it's him," he said, just above the threshold of hearing. "It's him. Oh Jack, it's him." Jack stumbled forward and fell to his knees next to the Doctor. "Deep down – in me – it's him. Some…remnant…"

"Shhhh." Jack loosely clasped the Doctor's forearm.

"I'm not me, Jack. Not entirely. He's in me, somewhere. A tiny fragment left over. He made me – he pushed me – and…" The Doctor gestured at the remains of the fobwatch, helplessly.

Jack didn't let go of the Doctor until, at long last, he stopped trembling.

* * *

 

Across the damp blue fens trudged a narrow figure. His species had evolved on a world with much greater gravity than this one, but he didn't cavort, light-footed, through the rotting vegetation as he might have. Something heavier than gravity weighted his steps. By the time he reached the TARDIS, the cuffs of his trousers were stiff with mud.

Jack was leaning against the side of the TARDIS, his feet resting on a dry patch. "Where are Haisel and Merle?"

"I used Garet's money to pay for a new treatment for Haisel. Merle is in the Institute's alien sick bay. The Chameleon Arch is destroyed. There's only so much harm he can do." The Doctor looked up at Jack's TARDIS. "You broke her chameleon circuit."

"What else could I do?" Jack stroked one of her wooden panels. "And Elisaresh's family?"

"I gave them the body and the rest of Garet's funds." The Doctor shrugged a little. "What else could I do?"

Jack let the silence hang. There was one thing left, but that was for the Doctor to do. Jack could only stand and wait for it.

"I don't suppose you could…" The Doctor reached out and let his fingertips brush the door handle. "Take me with you." There was a pause weighted with fear. "I think I need someone to stop me."

When Jack opened the door, the Doctor thought he could hear a strain of saxophone music, joined by the blare of trumpets. "It's easier being a coward, you know," Jack said as he crossed the threshold.

"Easier," said the Doctor. "But not better off."

Jack took him by the hand and drew him inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For my loyal readers, here is where all the chapter titles came from, in order.
> 
> "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff." - The Doctor in the easter egg from "Blink"
> 
> "That man, that impossible man!" - River Song, referring to the Doctor in "Forest of the Dead"
> 
> "He never gets to see what he's paid for. Never knows he's been had. [...] The perfect self-cleaning con." - Captain Jack, explaining his con to the Doctor and Rose in "The Doctor Dances"
> 
> "It's just a freak of technology." - River Song, explaining data ghosts to Donna in "Silence in the Library"
> 
> "The shape of the Globe gives words power, but you're the wordsmith, the one true genius. The only man clever enough to do it!" - The Doctor, referring to Shakespeare in "The Shakespeare Code"
> 
> "I can't believe it's you." - Sarah Jane to the Doctor in "School Reunion"
> 
> "Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!" - The Doctor in "Rose"  
> "Run for your life, Doctor!" - The Master in "The Sound of Drums"
> 
> "You just killed someone I liked. That is not a safe place to stand." - The Doctor to the Vashta Nerada in "Forest of the Dead"
> 
> "Sometimes, I think you need someone to stop you." - Donna to the Doctor in "The Runaway Bride"
> 
> "'Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act —'"  
> "'Falls the shadow.'" - Professor Lazarus and the Doctor in "The Lazarus Experiment", reciting from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men"


End file.
